Monthly Archives: November 2022

The holiday season is around the corner, so it’s time for marketers everywhere to gear up for Black Friday. From optimizing your website to launching outstanding deals and giveaways — there’s a lot that marketers need to account for. If you’re unsure what to do, here are nine marketing strategies that will wow your customers and boost your company’s revenue.

What is Black Friday?

Best Black Friday Marketing Ideas

Incorporate social media commerce.
Leverage email marketing.
Optimize your website for shopping.
Audit product pages.
Give longtime customers irresistible deals.
Follow up with customers after Black Friday.
Provide minimum spend rewards.
Create a sense of urgency.
Create a holiday marketing calendar.

Black Friday Marketing Tips

What is Black Friday?

Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States and marks the start of the holiday shopping season. It’s also when many companies (including your competitors) begin rolling out numerous deals and discounts on products.

To stay competitive, your company must prepare a marketing strategy to boost revenue and delight customers.

Best Black Friday Marketing Ideas

Below are nine Black Friday marketing ideas you should consider for 2022.

1. Incorporate social media commerce.

Social media is now becoming where consumers make purchases and learn more about products and brands. In 2020, social media commerce earned $26.97 billion in sales, which is expected to double to $56.17 billion by 2023. So why not incorporate social commerce into your Black Friday marketing strategy?

To do this, connect your online store with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube — which all provide avenues for users to make purchases. You can also run social media-exclusive Black Friday deals on these platforms, like Buy-1-Get-1 free deals.

What We Like: Not only will you generate more revenue online, but you will also draw new social media followers to your brand.

2. Leverage email marketing.

Ahead of Black Friday, start building an email list of potential customers to keep them informed of upcoming Black Friday deals. One way to do this is via pop-up forms, like the one below, that collect email addresses.

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Make sure to offer an incentive. For example, offer the customer 30% off their next purchase just for signing up for the email list. Once you have your email list together, you can start sending personalized content based on the customer’s needs. According to an eMarketer survey, customized emails have an ROI of 122%.

What We Like: By leveraging email marketing and personalized email content, you can encourage customers to stay subscribed long after Black Friday passes.

3. Optimize your website for shopping.

No one likes to wait for a slow website to finish uploading, especially on Black Friday when great deals are at stake. Ideally, you’ll want your website to load fully within one to four seconds because the time frame has a 12% to 30% conversion rate. The longer your site and its pages take to load, the more likely users will lose patience and abandon their purchases.

You also want to optimize your website to avoid crashes or outages from the high volume of Black Friday shoppers.

What We Like: Not only will optimizing your website improve conversion rates and avoid Black Friday mishaps, but it will also improve your website’s overall functionality — which is essential year-round.

4. Audit product pages.

Visitors to your site will spend most of their time browsing your product pages, looking for the items they want. So, you’ll need to audit those pages to ensure they provide a pleasant and efficient shopping experience. In your audit, make sure to:

Update product descriptions with sensory words to describe the product and SEO keywords to boost it in SERPs.
Group your products based on the recipient and purpose. For example, “Gifts for Kids” or “Home Decor.”
Include 6-8 product photos from different angles, so customers get a clear picture of what the product looks like.

What We Like: Auditing your product pages helps improve your customers’ experiences on your site. And similar to optimizing your website — these changes are essential all year-round.

5. Give longtime customers irresistible deals.

Show your longtime customers that you appreciate their commitment to your brand by offering exclusive deals. Be it giveaways, discounts, or BOGO, rewarding your customers for being longtime patrons will incentivize them to keep coming back long after Black Friday.

What We Like: Giving exclusive discounts and giveaways can help you clear your inventory in preparation for the new year.

6. Provide minimum spend rewards.

Another way to encourage customers to spend is by offering minimum spend rewards. Every time customers spend over a certain amount, and they receive a reward. The reward could be a percentage off their purchase, free shipping, a coupon code, or a gift.

What We Like: Minimum spend rewards can incentivize customers to spend more and serve as a “thank you” for their trust in the company.

7. Create a sense of urgency.

Urging consumers to act quickly is an excellent way to boost Black Friday sales. One Entrepreneur Marcus Taylor said building a sense of urgency helped him to increase sales by 332%. There are several ways to entice consumers into acting immediately, including:

Flash sales that only a few hours or just one day.
Showing when an item is low in stock
Using time-sensitive language like “last chance,” “today only,” or “now.”

What We Like: Marketers can promote flash sales via email or hold pop-up social media contests to get shoppers excited and ready to purchase.

8. Follow up with customers after Black Friday.

Just because Black Friday is over doesn’t mean the marketing stops. Reach out to customers via email and ask about their shopping experience. Are they satisfied with their purchase? You can also recommend other products based on their bought items or get them excited for Cyber Monday deals.

What We Like: This is an excellent opportunity to send personalized emails asking for honest feedback or recommending other products.

9. Create a holiday marketing calendar.

Of course, the key to any marketing strategy is to be organized. Create a holiday calendar to keep track of your Black Friday marketing strategies. You may even need separate calendars for different marketing channels, such as social media or email.

What We Like: Running other sales and discounts through various marketing channels can feel overwhelming. By creating at least one marketing calendar, you’ll be able to keep track of your strategies and progress confidently.

Black Friday Marketing Tips

No matter what strategies you choose to use this year, always remember to do the following:

Stay organized and create one or more calendars to keep track of your Black Friday strategies.
Ensure your website and product pages are optimized to handle high traffic from holiday shoppers.
Leverage social media and email marketing to stay top-of-mind with your customers.

Black Friday doesn’t have to be a stressful time of year for your business. By implementing any of the above strategies, you’ll be able to boost revenue and delight your customers ahead of the holidays.

If you’ve received an email from someone claiming to have hacked your account, don’t panic. It’s important to stay calm and take the necessary steps to protect yourself and your data.

This blog post will provide sample emails you can send to your contacts after being hacked. We will also share tips on protecting yourself from future hacking attempts.

What To Do if Your Email is Hacked

You can’t always tell if you were hacked immediately. Some hackers may send corrupted emails to your contacts without leaving a trail.

Other times, filter settings might catch suspicious messages and automatically place them in “Spam” or “Trash,” so you never even see them.

Luckily, there are a few signs to watch out for if you suspect someone has hacked your account:

You receive strange or unsolicited emails from someone with your own name or a third-party name. Look for blurred images, poor grammar, and strange email addresses.
People you know tell you they’ve received unusual emails from you. They’ll likely delete them immediately, so don’t be surprised if no one has any to show you.
Your password stops working out of nowhere. One day, you just can’t log into your account anymore.
You see unexpected activity on your account, such as new contacts or messages you didn’t write.

If all signs point to hacking, keep calm. Hacking is a hassle, but it’s nothing you can’t resolve in a few steps.

Steps to Follow After You’ve Been Hacked

1. Change your password.

If you think someone’s hacked your email, the first thing you should do is change your password. It might seem obvious, but it’s an effective way to stop the hacker from further accessing your account.

2. Set up two-factor authentication.

After you’ve changed your password, we recommend enabling two-factor authentication (if it’s not already enabled). Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security to your account by requiring you to enter a code from a second device when you sign in.

If you’re unsure how to change your password or enable two-factor authentication, contact your email provider for help.

3. Keep your software up-to-date.

Another way to protect yourself from hackers is to ensure that your software is always up-to-date. This includes your operating system, web browser, antivirus software, and any other programs you use.

Outdated software can have security vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit to gain access to your account. Keeping your software up-to-date can help close these security holes and make it harder for hackers to get into your account.

4. Email your contacts.

Once you’ve changed your password and enabled two-factor authentication, email your contacts, letting them know someone hacked your account. They’ll know to be cautious of any emails they received from you.

Doing this as soon as possible ensures they remain on high alert and protect them from future attacks.

Sample Letters for Hacked Email

Messages in this situation serve two purposes: to inform people of what happened and to provide directions on how to protect themselves. Being brief and apologetic will allow them to quickly turn their attention to the necessary steps, such as remaining vigilant.

Use the templates below if you ever are hacked.

1. Hello, This is [Your Name], and I’m writing to let you know that my email account was hacked.

Hi [Recipient Name],

I wanted to let you know that my email account was recently hacked. I’ve changed my password and taken steps to secure my account, but I wanted to warn you in case you received any suspicious emails from me.

If you received any suspicious messages, please delete them, and do not click on any links.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for understanding.

Take care,

2. Sorry, my account was hacked.

Hey [Recipient Name],

If you got any weird emails from me over the past few days, I’m sorry. My account was hacked, but I’ve since changed my password and added two-factor authentication.

Delete any suspicious emails you’ve received, and don’t click on any links.

Sorry about this, and thanks for bearing with me.

3. Hey, it’s [Your Name] ― I got hacked.

Hi [Recipient Name],

Today, I discovered that someone had hacked my email and social media accounts. Any unwanted emails and messages you’ve received are spam — many of my contacts have gotten spam emails from my account.

My apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you. I have taken steps to ensure that it won’t happen again.

Thanks for your patience!

4. Sorry [Recipient Name], I was hacked.

Hello,

I apologize for any unwanted emails you might have received in the last [timeframe]. My email account was hacked around [date], and spam messages were sent to my contacts, including you.

I’d never voluntarily sent this out to anyone, so I’m sorry if it made a wrong impression. Rest assured, I’ve secured everything already, so things should be secure moving forward.

Thanks for understanding,

5. Team, my email was hacked.

Hey Team,

I got hacked on [date], and I think spam messages have been going out [timeframe]. Sorry about that — I just noticed it and took the necessary steps to fix everything on my end.

Keep an eye out for anything suspicious, and ‌let me know if you continue getting any strange messages.

Thanks,

Stay protected with HubSpot

Getting hacked is never fun, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. By taking some simple steps, you can quickly get your account back under your control. Plus, you can help protect yourself and your contacts from future attacks.

At HubSpot, your security and safety are paramount. Our CRM platform for front office teams ensures the privacy of the data you entrust to us. Check out our site to learn more about how we keep you protected.

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Knowing your customers is a crucial component of successful inbound marketing. Get started with buyer persona questions that can help you understand customers’ mindsets.

We’ve gathered 20 questions that can help you identify your audience. After you explore the answers, use this free buyer persona template to share your findings with the rest of your company. 

Remember: you’ll need a content marketing strategy to reach your buyer personas. Find out how with HubSpot Academy’s free content marketing training resource page.

Download our free buyer persona template here to learn how to create buyer personas for your business.

Download Now

Questions About Their Personal Background

1. Describe your personal demographics.

Collecting demographic information is a great place to begin drafting your personas. These questions paint a clearer, more personal picture of your customer. 

Understand what communities they are a part of, and how those identities impact their interaction with your brand.

What to Look for in the Answer

Are they married? What’s their annual household income? Where do they live? What are their cultural and racial backgrounds? What is their gender identity? How old are they? Do they have children?

2. Describe your career path.

Having an idea of your client’s background tells you a lot about the type of information that they consume and the problems that they can face regarding their work. This can be especially helpful if you sell a B2B product. 

What to Look for in the Answer

How did they end up where they are today? Has their career track been pretty traditional, or did they switch from another industry?

3. Describe your educational background.

Get specific here. “Boston University” is better than “liberal arts college.” Where a person went to school can impact their worldview. That includes both the size of the college, their major, and the location of the school. 

What to Look for in the Answer

What level of education did they complete? Which schools did they attend, and what did they study? 

Questions About Their Company

4. What is the size of your company?

Keep an eye out for specific details about the company. The size of a business impacts how many people use your product, as well as the way they use your offering. Understanding the amount of revenue can help you set appropriate pricing. 

Knowing details about your persona’s company, like the number of employees, will help you when you’re building the fields for your landing page forms.

What to Look for in the Answer

How many people work at the company? How much revenue does the company generate? How many customers does the company serve? 

5. In which industry or industries does your company work?

The answer to this question isn’t the department in which your buyer persona works. Your buyer persona’s industry is the type of service they deliver to their clients, and knowing this can help you measure your business’s impact in the markets you’re targeting.

Depending on the challenges your buyer persona faces, it might also be worth getting information on the industries your client’s business serves, not just the actual service they provide. 

For example, if your buyer persona provides renewable energy plans for hospitals. They are in the environmental services industry for education and medical customers. 

What to Look for in the Answer

What sector do potential buyers work in? Are they in a broad industry like healthcare or insurance? Are they in a more niche market? 

Questions About Their Role

6. What is your job role? Your title?

The importance of your buyer persona’s job depends on the product or service you’re selling.

If you’re a B2C company, you may simply consider this information as another way to better understand the nuances of your persona’s life.

If you’re a B2B company, this piece of information becomes more crucial. Is your persona at a managerial or director level, and well versed in the intricacies of your industry? They’ll need less education than someone at an introductory level, who may need to loop in other decision-makers before making purchasing decisions.

What to Look for in the Answer

How long have they had this role and title? Are they an individual contributor, or do they manage other people? 

7. To whom do you report? Who reports to you?

If you have a B2B offering, knowing your buyers’ seniority levels is especially important. This information can help your sales team understand who prospects might be.

For B2C companies, your users’ seniority level can give you insight into their lifestyles. Do people spend most of their time in the office? Are they often in meetings? That will impact when and where they use your product. 

What to Look for in the Answer

How senior is your buyer? How many people work for them? Where are they in the larger organization? 

8. Which skills are required to do your job?

If they were hiring someone to replace them and had to write a job description of what’s required, what would it say? Understanding your buyer’s skillsets can help you understand the level of training they need when using your product. 

Or perhaps, your product is intended to supplement a skill they lack. Knowing where their strengths are can help you focus your product development efforts. 

What to Look for in the Answer

What are the ideal skills for this job, and how good is your persona at each of them? Where did they learn these skills? Did they learn them on the job, at a previous job, or by taking a course?

9. What does a typical day look like?

This should include both the tasks they do for their job, as well as what happens during the day outside their job. Knowing your personas’ schedules can help you understand when they use your offering. That holds true for both B2B and B2C products. 

What to Look for in the Answer

For their time in the office, look for the following.

What time do they get to work and what time do they leave? 
What do they do when they’re most productive? 
What’s their “busy work” look like?

For time spent outside of the office, take note of the following.

Are they spending more time at work or at home? 
Where would they rather be? 
What do they like to do for fun? 
Who are the people in their life that matter most? 
What kind of car do they drive? 
Which TV shows do they watch? 
Heck, what outfit are they wearing? Get personal here.

10. How is your job measured?

You should know what metrics will make your user successful, and what they might be worried about when it comes to “hitting their numbers.” This can help your marketing team identify which features to highlight. 

What to Look for in the Answer

Which metric(s) is your persona responsible for? Which numbers or charts or waterfall graphs do they look at every day?

11. What knowledge and tools do you use in your job?

Understanding what products they love (and hate) to use can help you identify commonalities in your own product (and adjust your positioning accordingly). You can also understand how your product integrates with their pre-existing tech stack.

What to Look for in the Answer

Which applications and tools do buyers use every single day? Every week? How much do they like these existing tools? 

Questions About Buyer Goals

12. What are you responsible for?

This goes beyond the metrics they’re measured on. Your team should know what their primary job responsibilities are. With this knowledge, you can better explain how your offering makes buyers’ lives easier. 

You can also identify ways to help your persona achieve their goals and overcome their challenges.

What to Look for in the Answer

What’s their primary goal at work? What about their secondary goal? What are their daily responsibilities? Quarterly responsibilities? Annual responsabilities? 

13. What are your biggest challenges?

You’re in business because you’re solving a problem for your target audience. How does that problem affect their day-to-day life? Go into detail, and focus on the nuances that illustrate how that problem makes them feel.

For example, let’s say your company sells personal tax software directly to consumers. One of your personas may be a first-time tax preparer. What are the pain points of first-time tax preparers? They’re probably intimidated by the prospect of doing their taxes by themselves for the first time, overwhelmed by a tax code they don’t understand, and confused about where to start. These pain points differ from those of a seasoned tax preparer.

Try coming up with real quotes to refer to these challenges. For example, “It’s been difficult getting company-wide adoption of new technologies in the past,” or “I don’t have time to train new employees on a million different databases and platforms.”

What to Look for in the Answer

What are the different challenges for demographics? How do pain points vary by seniority and experience level? How do these challenges affect their daily life? 

14. What does it mean to be successful in your role?

Companies that take the time to understand what makes their personas successful will likely enjoy more effective communications from both the sales and marketing teams.

What to Look for in the Answer

What can you do to make your personas look good? What features of your product already help them achieve their goals?

Questions About How Buyers Learn

15. How do you learn new information for your job?

If you’re going to market and sell to these personas, you need to understand how they consume information. Dive into their required upskilling at work, as well as the professional development your buyer individual sought. Your goal should be to best understand their learning style. 

What to Look for in the Answer

Do they go online, prefer to learn in person, or pick up newspapers and magazines? If they’re online learners, do they visit social networks? To Google? Which sources do they trust the most — friends, family, coworkers, or industry experts?

16. Which associations and social networks do you participate in?

You should already be investing time and resources in social media marketing. Identify the associations and social networks where your buyers spend their time. Then, you can prioritize which accounts to create and which conversations to participate in.

What to Look for in the Answer

What in-person or community-based gatherings do buyers attend? How are these gatherings promoted? What do they learn from these events?

What social media platforms do your buyers prefer? How much time do they spend on these platforms? What platform features do they actually use? 

17. Which publications or blogs do you read?

To piece together a typical day in their life, figure out where they regularly go to stay informed. If you know how they prefer to gather information, you can make yourself present in those spots. The next step is to establish credibility in those communities.

What to Look for in the Answer

What magazines or news outlets do they read? Are there blogs they frequent? Which trusted thought leaders do they turn to? 

Questions About Their Shopping Preferences

18. Describe a recent purchase.

You should understand your buyers’ evaluation process when making a purchase. How do they decide what they buy?

If you can anticipate the objections your persona will have, you can be prepared for them in the sales process. You will also be able to educate them in your marketing collateral to help allay fears right away. 

What to Look for in the Answer

Why did you consider a purchase, what was the evaluation process, and how did you decide to purchase that product or service?

Is this their first time purchasing a product or service of your kind? If not, what caused them to switch products or services? What might make them reticent to buy from providers in your industry? 

19. Do you use the internet to research vendors or products? If yes, how do you search for information?

These questions will help you determine which sources of information your buyer trusts. This can help you identify what type of reviews you would like to elicit. You can also plan your marketing collateral appropriately. 

What to Look for in the Answer

Which avenues are they using to find new information? Do they search online, look at review websites, ask their friends and family, or do something else?

20. How do you prefer to interact with vendors?

You should know the best ways to get in touch with potential buyers. From there, you can understand how they want to interact with you — as well as how frequently. The experience of purchasing your product should align with your persona’s expectations. 

What to Look for in the Answer

What should their sales experience feel like? Is it consultative? How much time do they expect to spend with a salesperson? Do they anticipate an in-person meeting, or would they rather conduct the sales process online or over the phone?

What’s next?

Once you’ve gone through this exercise and worked out any lingering questions about what makes your persona tick, browse through some stock imagery and find an actual picture to associate with your persona. Going through this exercise forces you to clarify an image of your target audience in your entire organization’s mind that will help keep your messaging consistent.

Another useful exercise is to practice being able to identify your buyer persona so you can tailor your communications. How will you know when you’re talking to this persona? Is it their job title? 

Once you’ve established not only who your persona is, but also how you can identify them when you encounter one or another, your employees will be able to maintain a consistent voice that is still customized to each person they talk to.

Then, use our free, downloadable persona template to organize the information you’ve gathered about your persona. Share these slides with the rest of your company so everyone can benefit from the research you’ve done and develop an in-depth understanding of the person (or people) they’re targeting every day at work.

Want to learn about some of the best real buyer personas? Check out seven companies with awesome buyer personas.

So you’ve created an amazing landing page to promote a special offer. You’ll need form conversion to turn your hard work into leads.

Where you place your forms, how they’re designed, and the language in your call-to-action all shape your visitor experience. Get these elements right, and you can grow your lists.  

This post explores how you can optimize your forms to gather high-quality leads. You’ll learn the following:

What is form conversion?
10 Tips to Optimize Form Conversion
Getting Started with Form Conversion

A “good” conversion rate falls between 2% to 5%, according to CRO platform company Adoric. However, Hubspot research from 2020 found that only 22% of companies were satisfied with their conversion rates. Email collection forms were the most successful method for converting customers, with a 15% conversion rate in 2020.

10 Tips to Optimize Form Conversion

If you want to transform your underperforming lead-generation forms, you’ll need to give both your webpage and the form itself a refresh. Start with these 10 tips to optimize form conversion.

1. Move your form above the fold.

Conversion forms should be above the fold on your landing page. That means visitors shouldn’t have to scroll down the page to see your form. There’s no need to search to find your offer. Doing this removes friction from your lead generation process.

For example, visitors on the landing page below instantly know they’ll need to fill out the free demo form.

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2. Make your form headline a call-to-action.

Encourage visitors to complete your form by making your headline a call-to-action. This tells your visitors exactly what they will get once they sign up.

For example, the form below starts with the call-to-action, “Start Your Free Trial Now.” This call to action is then repeated in the button at the bottom of the form, reinforcing the message.

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If you’re unsure of what to include in your form headline, consider the following.

Get Your Free [OFFER] Sign Up for [OFFER] Register for [WEBINAR/EVENT] Now!
Yes, I Want This [OFFER] Download the [OFFER] Claim Your [OFFER] Save Your Seat at [WEBINAR/EVENT]

3. Include the right number of fields.

When it comes to creating your form fields, use the Goldilocks method: Try to find the number that’s just right.

A long form will overwhelm people and dissuade them from filling it out. However, shorter forms can generate a high number of submissions, but your leads may be low quality. You’ll want to find the perfect number of fields to get high-quality leads without scaring prospects away.

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The length of your form depends on two factors.

The offers stage in your buying cycle. If you’re giving away a free checklist or infographic, you might only want to collect first name, last name, and email. However, more substantial lead magnets, like an ebook or whitepaper, indicate the prospects are further along the research process. In these cases, ask for more detailed information.
How many leads you generate. If your sales team has many leads to sift through, add more fields to your forms so your reps can better qualify each lead, and identify those worth calling. While more fields may produce fewer leads, these leads are often better.

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4. Make the required form fields noticeable.

If you’re still wary about your form length, determine which information is a must-have vs. a nice-to-have.

For example, fleet safety software company Nauto built the form below to get sales-qualified leads. Besides the regular form fields, they have required fields for job title, company fleet size, and primary vehicle type.

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This compulsory information leads to fewer, but better, leads. Put another way, their sales reps will effectively use their time to close these leads.

You can typically denote required fields with an asterisk (*). Optional fields will not have an asterisk.

5. Hide previously completed fields.

For first-time visitors, HubSpot’s conversion forms are long. We get a lot of leads, so we need extra form fields to determine the lead quality. This allows us to correctly rotate the leads to the right reps.

However, we only show these extra fields to first-time visitors. Notice the difference in the form?

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We did this by enabling smart form fields. Smart form fields can allow you to get your contacts’ information the first time they sign up to receive an offer.

The best part? They create a better user experience for visitors because you can generate questions specific to a set of your audience.

6. Edit your submit button.

After studying the landing pages of over 40,000 HubSpot customers, we found buttons labeled “Submit” had lower conversion rates. Meaning, the default text of your submission button will cause missed opportunities.

Your submit button offers a final chance to convince visitors to fill out those last few fields. To get better conversions from this button, customize the text based on your offer.

Here are some examples.

Download This eBook
Sign Me Up for a Demo
Show Me This Presentation
Claim Your Coupon
Save Your Seat

These calls-to-action are all more enticing than “submit.”

7. Do an A/B test to choose your CTA color.

Randomly choosing a CTA color is not ideal. An A/B test can help you make an informed decision.

Early on, Performable ran a test using green and red CTA buttons. What did they find? Conversion rates for the red button were 21% more than the green button.

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Pro tip: Understanding color psychology is a great first step to picking a CTA color. However, if you want to really find out what color resonates, consider using A/B tests to find the color with the highest conversion rates.

8. Guarantee the privacy of your visitors.

The laws of the United States, European Union, Canada, and Australia require you to link to your privacy policy. Besides allaying the fear of hesitant visitors, a privacy policy makes you seem trustworthy. This can increase your conversions.

In your form, you can link to your privacy policy before the submission button while including a snippet. Here’s how this looks on our forms.

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If you don’t know what should go on your privacy page, get some ideas from HubSpot’s privacy policy. People want to know how we’ll use their contact information, making this page one of the most visited on our site.

9. Use the right form layout.

Choosing the right form layout involves knowledge of human behavior. The best forms create a frictionless experience for potential leads. Here’s how you can optimize your form’s layout.

Place form labels above the corresponding input fields.
Do not separate a form into more than one column.
Only ask one question per row.
Match the size of input fields to the expected length of the answer.

Let’s apply these best practices to the form below.

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The input field lengths are ideal for both first and last names. However, the email field is not optimized, as most professional emails aren’t that lengthy.

10. Consider multi-page forms.

Perhaps you need to gather more user data to find qualified leads. A lengthy, single-page form may scare off potential prospects. You can instead create a form with multiple pages to break up the user experience.

Let’s look at the form below as an example.

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The first page asks simply for the visitor’s name. The second page gathers the person’s contact information, and the third gathers information about the person’s business. The final page asks for the size of the company.

Each page of the form asks for more information than the last. However, by creating multiple, easy steps, the visitor isn’t overwhelmed by the amount of information they need to share.

Getting Started with Form Conversion

Simply asking for information isn’t enough. Your forms have to create a frictionless user experience to create leads. You’ll also need compelling offers bolstered by top-notch design and the right message.

Becoming a form conversion expert will take time. Remember: Increasing your conversion rate will involve trial and error. Experiment with different messaging and placements to see what works. Make note of the best practices that work specifically for your organization.